Did My Best As Rajya Sabha Chairman, Am Leaving Satisfied: Naidu

Outgoing Rajya Sabha Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu on his last day in office on Wednesday said he is leaving satisfied with his work and urged the members of the house to make judicious use of rules and instruments to raise various issues.

In a meeting with the secretary general and other senior officials of the Secretariat this morning, Naidu said, "During the last five years I have done my best as the Chairman of Rajya Sabha and I am leaving this office satisfied."

Sources said he referred to the reversal during the last three years of the declining trend of productivity of Rajya Sabha since 1995 and various initiatives taken to enable effective functioning of the House and the Secretariat.

Naidu complimented the senior officials of the Secretariat for their commitment and hard work and assistance extended to him during the last five years. He urged them to identify deficiencies, if any in the system and to strive to remove the same.

Later, in a meeting with some members of Rajya Sabha, recourse to various rules by the MPs to raise issues was discussed at length. Naidu voiced concern over invoking Rule 267 seeking suspension of all other rules for taking up certain issues of importance as felt by some sections of the House. 

"The Rule 267 should be resorted to in the rarest of the rare cases that justifies suspension of other rules of the House. It should not be taken lightly. Different Members giving notices under this Rule on different issues on the same day is another issue impacting the perceived priorities for the day," a source quoting him said.

Naidu is learnt to have told them that he acted tough on some occasions as warranted by the rules of the House and it was in the larger interest of the functioning of the House.

Despite the limitations imposed on the Chair in the matter of allocation of time to different parties and MPs, Naidu told the members that he did his best to give more time to members of small parties represented in the House.

Referring to the importance of the department related parliamentary standing committees and their bipartisan working and near unanimous presentation of reports, the chairman urged members to make best use of the meetings of the committees through better attendance and longer duration of meetings, the sources add.

-With PTI Input